Fear the robotic reapers taking our jobs

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, May 7, 2017

Photo: Bob Brawdy, MBR

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FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2014, file photo, a worker picks apples at Flat Top Ranch in Walla Walla County, Wash. Harvesting the vast fruit orchards of Eastern Washington each year requires thousands of farmworkers, many of them working illegally in the United States. That system could eventually come to an end as at least two companies are rushing to get robotic fruit picking machines to market. (Bob Brawdy/The Tri-City Herald via AP, File) less

FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2014, file photo, a worker picks apples at Flat Top Ranch in Walla Walla County, Wash. Harvesting the vast fruit orchards of Eastern Washington each year requires thousands of ... more

Photo: Bob Brawdy, MBR

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rice university robot

rice university robot

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Rebecca LeBlanc poses for a picture with a person in a robot costume during Anime Matsuri held at George R. Brown Convention Center Friday April 7, 2017.

Rebecca LeBlanc poses for a picture with a person in a robot costume during Anime Matsuri held at George R. Brown Convention Center Friday April 7, 2017.

Photo: Michael Starghill, Jr.

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A NAO humanoid robot, developed by Softbank Corp., is displayed at a German tech fair this week. Automation could put many human jobs at risk.﻿

A NAO humanoid robot, developed by Softbank Corp., is displayed at a German tech fair this week. Automation could put many human jobs at risk.﻿

Photo: Krisztian Bocsi

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Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics, is shown at a 2013 trade show in Chicago. It's intended for light assembly operations. Rethink disputed a report that found significant security flaws in Baxter, saying vulnerabilities had been "phased out" in its latest software. ﻿ less

Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics, is shown at a 2013 trade show in Chicago. It's intended for light assembly operations. Rethink disputed a report that found significant security flaws in Baxter, saying ... more

Technology, after all, has a history of sneaking up on humans. We love it when a machine eliminates rote and repetitive tasks. We welcome computers that catch our mistakes and correct them. But we rarely notice, at first, how technology changes our lives.

When a job becomes easier, our employer begins demanding more from us. And soon managers notice that some jobs are no longer necessary.

This dynamic has hurt auto workers in Detroit, accountants in New York and petroleum engineers in Houston. In fact, machines have eliminated tens of millions of jobs over the last 100 years, from buggy whip maker to bank teller.

Conservative capitalists don't want you to hold them accountable for purchasing the machines that replace American jobs, so they blame foreign workers. But international trade is only responsible for 13 percent of the U.S. manufacturing jobs lost since 2000. Machines have replaced 4.4 million of the 5 million lost manufacturing jobs, according to researchers at Ball State University.

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Now, experts are sounding urgent alarms about robotics and artificial intelligence eliminating 38 percent of today's jobs in the next 15 years, according to consulting and accounting firm PwC.

"Manual and routine tasks are more susceptible to automation, while social skills are relatively less automatable," writes John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC "That said, no industry is entirely immune from future advances in robotics and AI."

Some of the jobs are not surprising, such as bankers, taxi drivers and low-skill manufacturing workers. But highly-compensated, white collar workers are the next targets.

Financial analysts and wealth advisors are having a difficult time proving their value. Passively managed index funds are delivering higher returns for the average investor than stock portfolios managed by people. The rapidly growing financial technology sector is building robots that can question investors to come up with customized investment strategies. Those strategies are quicker to devise, and often just as profitable.

Citigroup estimates that 30 percent of financial and banking sector jobs could be eliminated by 2025.Farming, always a leader in automation, is cutting back on physical labor. Robots are using cameras and sensor-laden tools to milk cows, weed cabbage patches and pick apples.

Amazon plans to change the way we shop for groceries, building a prototype store that detects items as you remove them from shelves and then restocks them using robots. Humans only maintain the machines.

And lastly, a new company called Construction Robotics has developed a machine that can lay 1,200 bricks a day, compared to human masons who can only lay 500.

It's enough to make John Henry, the steel-driving man of African American folklore, weep for humanity.

Yet technology is how humans have grown economies and accumulated wealth since the dawn of time.

Every tool that allows us to make more things with less effort makes us more productive. The economic spurt between 1990 and 2007 was driven by 2.4 percent annual growth in productivity, mostly driven by computer and telecommunications. Workers who caught that wave saw their wealth grow. But lately productivity has slowed to 1.2 percent as that technology matures.

Robotics and artificial intelligence will bring the next wave of productivity growth, experts agree. But the challenge will be not leaving too many workers behind.

"The United States does not have a good record of constructive policy response to technological unemployment," writes Alice Rivlin, the former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. "The reaper, the railroads, the automobile, the computer, the smart phone all created vast fortunes, remarkable consumer benefits, and tough times for a lot of displaced workers."

Governments sometimes respond nonsensically. While I lived in Kenya, the government imposed a tariff on blenders, mixers and any other electronic device that saved labor in the kitchen. Lawmakers wanted to protect kitchen laborers from losing their jobs.

American politicians talk a lot about protecting jobs, even if it means breaking trade deals or making consumers pay more for goods. But there is another way.

"We have to figure out new ways of developing and adequately rewarding the skills that only humans have, like empathizing, nurturing, motivating, and fostering athletic skills and artistic creativity," Rivilin wrote for Brookings, a Washington-based think tank.

Imagine that, a society that highly values public servants, caretakers, teachers, artists and writers. If that's the promise, then I say bring on the robots.